Investigation Intensifies In Girl`s Disappearance

Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro became tight-lipped on Friday about his office`s investigation into the disappearance of Julie Magliulo, but he did say the inquiry has intensified and that he thinks the 3-year-old child is alive.

Julie`s mother, Brenda Magliulo, looked tired but composed when she returned home Friday night after she was given a lie detector test and questioned by detectives for 10 hours at sheriff`s headquarters.

Brenda Magliulo said detectives asked her the ``same old things. They asked me about what happened to (Julie)`` on Monday, when she disappeared from their home near North Lauderdale.

Tony Magliulo said Friday night he was not given a lie detector test, and that he didn`t know why his wife had been questioned so intensely.

``I`m being kept just as much in the dark as anyone,`` he said.

Sheriff`s officials wouldn`t say if the questioning of family members had anything to do with a break in the case.

``Everybody in the family has been questioned more than once, as well as anybody who knows anything,`` sheriff`s spokesman Jim Leljedal said. ``They`ll probably be back again. That`s the way an investigation works.``

Navarro said he wouldn`t talk about the questioning, and told his public information officers within earshot of reporters not to say anything about the case. He would only tell reporters that the investigation had ``intensified.``

``No comment on the investigation. Absolutely no comment on anything until everything is finished, and then we can talk about it,`` Navarro said to his public information staff.

Ever since Julie`s disappearance, Brenda Magliulo has appeared calm. She often has said she could not become upset because it would prevent her from helping to find her daughter.

Brenda Magliulo said two detectives told her they were picking her up at her home at 9:30 a.m. because they wanted her to look at a pair of red shorts that they didn`t think were Julie`s, but that they still wanted her to see at sheriff`s headquarters.

Tony Magliulo said within an hour of his wife`s departure from their home, at 6201 SW 19th St., that he did not know why she was being questioned.

When Tony, Brenda and Camille Magliulo returned home from sheriff`s headquarters at 8:15 p.m., friends gathered around them, asking about the detectives` questions and the lie-detector test.

``Just let them judge by walking in my shoes for a while,`` she said Friday night. ``I may be calm on the outside, but it is another thing on the inside.``

``I couldn`t care less what people or the police think,`` she said at another point during the same conversation. ``But I figure the police, they have to check everything out.``

A calm fell over the family`s Broadview Estates neighborhood in unincorporated Broward County on Friday.

There were no cars jamming the bend in the street near Julie`s home. Few reporters or volunteers were packed into the house or camped in the front yard.

A helicopter made its daily fly-over of the lake across the street from the family`s home in the morning, hovering close enough to the water to stir it and search for clues.

Nothing had surfaced, but a few searchers continued combing underbrush around the neighborhood, and planned to regroup at 10 a.m. today at Broadview Baptist Church, near Southwest 16th Court and 61st Avenue.

Before being brought in for questioning, Tony Magliulo was doing his best to put his home back together. Mechanically, he walked about his front lawn, interrupting his steps only to pick up some of the litter in the yard.

``I gotta keep on hoping,`` Tony Magliulo told a volunteer who began helping him clean up. ``I know she`s still out there.``

``Yeah, we`re keeping the faith, too,`` responded John Watson, the helper. ``This whole thing has got a lot of good people wearing themselves down. A lot of people have lost a lot of sleep this week.``

Watson, 19, lost a lot more than sleep. While searching the canals and woods for Julie, he lost a new security job he was supposed to start this week.

``This is more important to me,`` Watson said. ``I`d want people to do the same for me if something happened to my baby sister.``